584 EXPERIMENT STATION EECOED. 



chlorid and has less bactericidal power and no greater therapeutic value. The 

 new methylene blues are various modifications of the methylene blue molecule 

 and have in the main no advantage over methylene blue. New methylene blue 

 GG, however, showed some effect in the one case in which it was used thera- 

 peutically, and it, with other oxygen derivaties of methylene blue, will be given 

 further tests. 



" Selenium blue and tellurium blue are new blue dyes in which the sulphur of 

 the methylene blue molecule is replaced by selenium and by tellurium. They are 

 weaker and less stable dyes than methylene blue and more toxic and less bac- 

 tericidal than that dye. They penetrate the tubercle, and are reduced in it, and 

 can be reoxidized ; they stain the living tubercle bacillus, but more faintly than 

 does methylene blue. In fact they behave in all respects as weaker editions of 

 methylene blue and have no advantage over it. 



" Neither methylene blue nor any of the allied dyes tested by me may be snld 

 to have much therapeutic influence over experimental tuberculosis of the guinea 

 pig. While methylene blue seems for many reasons a favorable starting point 

 for tuberculosis chemotherapy, other modifications of it, and probably many 

 others, must be tried before a claim to have found a specific for this disease 

 [can be made]." 



Acid-fast bacilli in milk, J. M. Beattie and F. C. Lewis {Ahs. in Jour. 

 Path, and Bad., IS {1913), No. 1, pp. 122, 123). — Special stress is laid on the 

 fact that acid-fast bacilli occur in milk which are totally different from tubercle 

 bacilli. These organisms, however, grow very well in milk at ordinary tempera- 

 tures. The bacillus is Gram-positive, nonmotile, nonliquefying, and in mor- 

 phology is rather thick and stains more uniformly than the tubercle bacillus. 

 When grown in milk many of the rods isolated from inoculated animals closely 

 resemble the human and bovine types of tubercle bacilli. 



The authors believe that the microscopic method for examining milk for the 

 presence of the tubercle bacillus should not be substituted for the inoculation 

 method. 



Investigations in regard to the experimental diagnosis of contagious 

 pleuro-pneumonia of bovines, K. Poppe (Arh. K. Gftndlttsamt., Jf5 (1913), No. 2, 

 pp. 238-268, pis. 3, figs. 4). — In localities where many cases of this disease occur 

 the diagnosis is easily made, but in those where the cases are few, especially 

 when the first ones occur, it is more difficult. The uncertainty of the anatomical 

 method of diagnosis made it desirable to look for a means which rests on ac- 

 curate experimental principles, consequently filtration, inoculation, and serum 

 diagnostic tests were made in this direction. 



The findings of Nocard and Dujardin and Beaumetz in regard to the filtration 

 method for isolating the contagious pleuro-pneumonia virus were verified. In 

 the study, tissues from other diseases such as tuberculous broncho-pneumonia, 

 emphysema of the lungs, and normal lung tissue were included for comparison 

 with the lung tissue and exudates from authentic cases of lung plague. The 

 exudates, etc., were diluted with Martin's peptone bouillon. 



With normal tissue or the tissue from cases in which the etiologic factor of 

 lung plague was not present, the results of the filtration test showed the absence 

 of the charactersitic opalescent clouding of the filtrate (culture) and no minute 

 strongly refracting granules. Where material containing a considerable amount 

 of blood, or material in a putrefying condition was used, a light opalescence 

 was noted, but it was never so pronounced as that from the specific material. 

 Culture tests with filtered exudates, etc., accompanied l>y inoculation tests with 

 calves and smaller experimental animals supported the diagnosis of this dis- 

 ease. The complement fixation test did not give satisfactory results, but the 



